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Posts Tagged ‘Bob Dylan’

Into the Blue Tangle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Into the Blue Tangle– At Principle Gallery June 13, 2025

O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.

— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

This is another new painting, Into the Blue Tangle, from my upcoming solo show at the Principle Gallery. This year’s exhibit, my 26th at the Alexandria gallery, is titled Entanglement and this piece very much captures the meaning and spirit behind that title.

I’ve written here that my work, at its core, represents my belief system. I think that can be said of the work of almost any artist. The work from this show is an even more direct display of my belief system, putting its certainties and uncertainties out there for all to see. If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time you know that uncertainty plays as big a part in this belief system as any certainty I might hold.

Maybe the bigger part, actually.

That uncertainty is a big part of this painting for me. In it, the Red Tree stands alone on its tiny outcropping, feeling certain that there is something beyond what it senses, something that binds it to everything everywhere. Yet, it is unsure in its own ability to recognize or understand the meaning of this entanglement if it were to unravel before its eyes.

How can one understand the answer when one doesn’t know the question?

So, it senses the wonder of that great tangle of energy that swirls around unseen and undetected with the certainty that it is part of it yet uncertain as to how or why. It all remains a mystery, bound together in tight interweaving knots that give glimpses of beginnings and endings without ever truly revealing either.

Perhaps time will reveal an answer. Or a question. Or not. Maybe we’re not meant to know much here in our time here. Maybe what we think we know here clouds what we inherently know from our bonds to that tangle above?

Hmm. Now, I don’t know even more than before.

That wasn’t supposed to happen, so I better stop and just share a song for this Sunday Morning Music. I am going with the obvious, Tangled Up in Blue, the classic from Bob Dylan. On its surface it doesn’t have a lot to do with this painting but then again anything and everything has to do with this painting.

At least, that’s how I see it.

Into the Blue Tangle, a new 14″ by 14″ painting on canvas, is included in my exhibit of new work, Entanglement, that opens less than two weeks from today, on Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM.

The day after the show’s opening, on Saturday, June 14, I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery. The demo should run from 11 AM until 1 PM or thereabouts. Hope you can make it either or both events.

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Wherever the Wind Takes Me

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2025| 5 Comments »

Wherever the Wind Takes Me – At Principle Gallery, June 2025

It’s hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.

–Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

This was one of the first pieces completed for my upcoming Principle Gallery exhibit. It pretty much sent me in the direction that had me deciding to focus on the unity and interconnectedness of all energy and things as the theme for the show. It was the painting that spawned the idea of Entanglement as the show’s title. It’s been a favorite for me here in the studio over the seven months or so since it emerged.

It’s called Wherever the Wind Takes Me and is 15″ by 30″ on canvas. The title implies a journey or voyage of some sort and that’s true for the most part. My take on it is that there are all sorts of journeys, some that take you outward to distant shores and some that take you inward to equally distant shores within yourself. Both offer the potential for adventure and discovery of something new and perhaps life-altering.

The other thing that comes to mind for me from this painting, even in its title, is that we often go on such journeys without knowing what it is that we seek. And that is just as it should be because we often can’t recognize what it is that we most need. We think we know but we are often mistaken, especially when our conscious mind has not yet opened and melded with the greater entanglements that surround us.

It is then, when we journey– inward or outward without expectation of answers or discovery–that we may learn what it is that we need most.

It is then that the Entanglement will guide us– in the form of the wind in this painting– to what it is that we unknowingly seek.

In this case, the wind knows just what that is.

That might not make sense to you. It often doesn’t make sense to me. That makes me think I might be on the right track. The wind will let me know…

Here’s a tune that has been in my mind since I woke up this morning and it kind of fits. Kind of. The song is from The Byrds, their cover of Dylan’s You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.

Entanglement opens Friday, June 13 at the Principle Gallery with an Opening Reception from 6-8:30 PM. I will also be giving a Painting Demonstration at the gallery on the following day, Saturday, June 14, from 11 AM until 1 PM.

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Uncloudy Day

Posted in Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , , , on January 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »

“Private Space”- Available at the Principle Gallery, VA

Oh, they tell me of a home where my friends have gone
Oh, they tell me of that land far away
Where the tree of life in eternal bloom
Sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day

—Uncloudy Day, Josiah K. Alwood 

Still on a semi-hiatus here on the blog but wanted to continue playing my Sunday Morning musical selection. This week I am going way back with a gospel tune called Uncloudy Day, written by Josiah K. Alwood in 1879. We’re not going back quite that far for this week’s pick but it’s still pretty old, taking us back to 1956 when The Staple Singers first recorded what is probably the definitive version of this song. 

This is a powerfully performed song, with the droning bite of the undertone from the electric guitar of Pops Staples and an emotional vocal lead from Mavis Staples. It’s hard to believe but Mavis was only 16 years old when she recorded this.

It’s reported that this song was a huge influence on a young Bob Dylan. His appreciation didn’t stop at the song as he pursued and proposed to Mavis Staples in the early 1960’s. She turned him down but they have maintained a close friendship and working relationship to this day, recording and touring together periodically over the many decades that followed.

Anyway, it’s a song that always stops me in my tracks and I think anything that makes you stop to listen is a good song to kick off a Sunday. 

Be careful out there and have a good day.

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The Times They Are A-Changin’

Posted in Current Events, Music, tagged , , , , , on December 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“Sublime”– Now at the Principle Gallery

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

–Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’

I’ve heard this Bob Dylan song hundreds of times over the decades since it first came out in 1964 and a particular line in it always jumps out at me, even in idle listening. The line is: Don’t stand in the doorway/Don’t block up the hall/For he that gets hurt/Will be he who has stalled.

I have always read it as being about the inevitability of change and that those who try to stand in its way rather than trying to adapt are the losers in the end. The fact that it is used in a verse that refers to senators and congressmen makes it pointedly topical, especially in times when the present Senate Republican majority leader has been heard telling a group of big donors in recent days that he will oppose and stall every bill put forward by the Democrats, even bills he considers good bills. He said he would not allow them any victories.

That means he also will not allow the American people any victories, any gains, as he darkly tries to stall progress and change. We have seen this act before and have suffered from his mean-spirited intransigence.

But try as he might, change will come, in one way or another. It can be slowed or stalled but it is only temporary and eventually it bursts through all obstacles, usually obliterating them in the process. Like the lines from the Dylan song.

So, for this last Sunday in this monumental and often awful year of 2020, I thought it fitting that I play a version of this song, probably one you haven’t heard before. It’s from a 1969 album called Dylan’s Gospel from a group called The Brothers & Sisters of L.A., which was a group of L.A. based studio backup singers organized to record an album of Dylan covers in a gospel format. The group included some pretty high profile studio singers including Merry Clayton who I have wrote about here in the past. She is best known for her searing vocals on Gimme Shelter from the Rolling Stones. She is the lead on today’s song and knocks it out of the park.

The album was not a commercial success so this was the only effort from the group but it left behind several powerful versions of Dylan’s songs including The Times They Are A-Changin’.  So, let’s wrap up this year with some gospel firepower, brush aside the barriers and let the times a-change as they surely must.

Have a good Sunday.

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I Shall Be Released

Posted in Advice, Music, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on December 6, 2020| 1 Comment »

 

“Walk in Peace”- Now at the West End Gallery

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

–Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass

Don’t want to focus on the dangers of the delusional craziness we’ve been experiencing in the past few weeks. It’s hard to believe this is where we are as a nation. But this morning, I want to, like the figure in the painting above, just walk in peace. 

So, I am going to take it easy this morning, maybe heed the words of Uncle Walt and dismiss those things that insult my own soul. 

Here’s a lovely version of Bob Dylan‘s classic I Shall Be Released from Rising Appalachia. The spare feel of the accompaniment from the bass and percussion really accentuate the beautiful vocals here. Nice.

Have a good day. Walk in peace.

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Diamonds and Rust

Posted in Music, tagged , , , on June 14, 2020| 4 Comments »

Been sitting here for well over an hour and a half, just listening to different music, looking at paintings and thinking on a wide range of subjects and memories, many from the distant past. There’s no nostalgia in it. Not even much wistfulness. Just tracing lines back and forth, trying to see how things come and go, how things change, how we both grow and erode with time.

And after all of that I think I am just going to play a song this morning.

Maybe it has something to do with the time spent this morning. Maybe not. I am not going to talk about it here except to say this a beautifully written and performed song. It’s from Joan Baez from back in the mid 1970’s and references her relationship with Bob Dylan in the the 1960’s with ten years perspective.

It struck a chord with me then and still does, after all these years. Here’s Diamonds and Rust.

Have a good day.
*************

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I Contain Multitudes

Posted in Music, Painting, Poetry, tagged , , , , , , , on April 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

*********************

Walt Whitman: Song of Myself, Part 51

 

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

*******************************

Bob Dylan unveiled another new song a few days ago, a follow up to his 17 minute epic, Murder Most Foul. Its title, I Contain Multitudes, references a line from Song of Myself from Walt Whitman. It’s a line that I have used in the past, most notably last year as the basis for my series of face paintings, Multitudes.

The piece from that series, shown here on the right, is what I would consider the title piece for the series, bearing the title Multitudes. I see the faces in these pieces as being parts of me, small parts that make up a greater whole. Just as the masses of people that make up a nation, it is always filed with paradox and contradiction.

The good and the bad. The wise and the foolish. The happy and the sad. The humble and the greedy. The careful and the careless.

You try to focus on the better parts with the hope that is the part that people identify with you. But like a vast nation, you can never know which part of you is  perceived as your true self by others.

So, there you are, containing multitudes that contradict one another from moment to moment, trying to put on your best face. It’s all you can do.

Here’s Dylan’s new song. Give a listen and put your best face forward today, if you can.

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Murder Most Foul

Posted in Current Events, Music, tagged , , on April 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

Last week, Bob Dylan released his first original song in eight years. Titled Murder Most Foul the 17 minute song is primarily focused on the 1963 assassination of JFK but uses it more a point of departure for a guided ride on a hazy time machine that moves through the decades that followed.

Over a slow paced backing with piano, drum and strings that gives it the feel of an elegy or requiem, Dylan takes the imagery of that dark November and weaves it together with a long list of wildly disparate references to musical selections and pop culture figures.

It all becomes a mesmerizing drone.

On one hand, it seems to be just a mishmash of words and references with no real meaning.

But on the other hand, it feels like it is pointing us to this moment as an endpoint for an arc that began on that day in 1963, with every moment and event since, large or small, pushing us forward to this culmination.

Like we’ve been on a journey since that day and this moment and situation was our ultimate destination.

And for many whose lives have spanned that time period, that feeling is one that makes a certain amount of sense. For these folks, that day in 1963 has cast a shadow over everything since and there is a constant groping through the detritus of the years to find the connecting strands that will somehow make sense of it all. For them, there seems to be something going on, a set pattern of small indiscernible nudges, that is just out of reach or understanding.

And this song somehow feels like it is bringing finality to that pattern’s path.

I can’t say whether that this is true or not or if I even believe what I’ve just written. Maybe it’s an epic. Or maybe it’s just a load of crap. I guess, like all art, it’s a subjective opinion.

For me, it’s just oddly compelling. I’ve probably listened to this song forty times or more in the past week, sometimes playing it on a loop while I have been stretching canvasses or working at some other simple physical tasks. I find it oddly soothing, especially after listening to it immediately after watching the news reports on the current situation. I find myself pausing at certain recurring moments in each playing of the song and catching a few of same couplets, out of the many that make up the song, again and again.

Maybe I am trying to find the pattern in this song that might somehow bring to light the pattern that has possibly spanned the past 56+ years.

I don’t know.

I’m sharing a version with lyrics so, if you have the desire and 17 minutes to spare, give a listen. It will give you something to think about in your time of isolation. Have a good day.

 

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Must Be Santa, 2019 Edition

Posted in Current Events, Event, Favorite Things, Music, tagged , , , on December 23, 2019| 2 Comments »

I’ve played this song, Must Be Santa from Bob Dylan, a couple of times over the past decade. It’s a great song, a polka with a klezmer feel that takes Dylan back his Jewish roots and in the the entertaining video you get the bonus of seeing Dylan dance. Good fun for the day before Christmas.

The last time I ran this song I included a group of photos of Santa that were less than jovial and maybe a little menacing. Creepy Clauses. While looking for an photo or two to accompany that post, I browsed through masses of images of Santas from the past and was amazed how many of them crossed that line into outright creepiness. It made me believe that Santa is just about on par with clowns in Creep Factor. You might see a rogue clown in the woods but Santa is, simply put, a bearded home intruder and flamboyant dresser who crawls down your chimney in the dark of night.

He knows when you are sleeping, for god’s sake!

When I was kid I had time going to sleep on Christmas Eve because of the excitement and anticipation that Santa was on his way. Now, after looking at those photos of Psycho Santas, I won’t be able sleep for fear that he actually might be on his way!

For that first post with the borderline Santas, I picked a few that were pretty strange but there were plenty more of them out there, some which just made me a little queasy. I have a feeling that many of them are also in sort of police registry somewhere.

I thought I would include a fresh batch of Kreepy Kringles this year. I kept the one from the original, at the top here, because he just weirds me out on multiple levels.

Anyway, enjoy the song and have a good holiday. And don’t worry about the weird old man hovering around your home tomorrow night…

 

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Thanks & Thunder

Posted in Event, Music, tagged , , , , on August 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

First, want to thank everyone who came out to the Octagon Gallery at  the Patterson Library on Friday evening to see the work in the Icons & Exiles show that opened there. I met a bunch of new folks who were not familiar with my work and got to tell the stories behind a number of the folks that populate this particular group of paintings. It was a very enjoyable time.

And many thanks to Nancy Nixon Ensign who curated and hung the show. She did a fantastic job of mixing the works from various series into a cohesive unit that invites you to move slowly around the space so that you can take it all in. Great job, Nancy!

I will be giving an Art Talk on this show on Thursday, September 12, so if you’re in the Westfield area– which is a charming town!–try to make it there. The show itself hangs until September 20.

For this Sunday morning music I am going with one of my favorite Bob Dylan song from more recent times. By that I mean within the last twenty years or so. With a career that spans almost 60 years, you sometimes have to specify from what period a song might come. This song, Thunder on the Mountain, is from 2006.

Have yourself a good day…

 

 

 

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